The Path Between the Seas

Title: The Path Between the Seas

Author: David McCullough

Pages: 698 (including 83 pages of notes and index)

Genre: History, Non-fiction

Grade: A+

Synopsis: This is the story of the building of the Panama Canal. The book is split up into three sections. The first (1870-1894) explores the French's attempt at building the canal at Panama. The French spent hundreds of millions of dollars with a loss of around 20,000 lives and ultimately failed in their endeavors. Their failure brought depression to the French and forced out the government's leaders. The next section (1890-1904) involves the United States's decision to build a canal in Central America. Most of America wanted the canal to be built in Nicaragua (because how could the French have possibly chosen the best location?) but due to ingenious lobbying, the Americans ultimately decided on Panama. They purchased the canal holdings from the French and helped Panama secede from Columbia because the Colombian government wouldn't ratify the canal treaty that the Americans had drafted. The final section (1904-1914) covers the building of the great Panama Canal. The sheer scale of the work in the Panama Canal defies comprehension. At the height of the work, 45,000-50,000 people were working on the canal. Enough dirt was excavated to build a canal 55 feet wide and 10 feet deep from San Francisco to New York.

My Review: This book has claimed the top spot of my favorite books. This is a book that shouldn't be interesting but ends up being one of the most fascinating. The story is full of intrigue, deception, hard work, failure and ultimately success. McCullough has a way of describing events using written accounts and his knowledge of the time period that brings history to life. This is the fourth book by McCullough that I've read, and I look forward to reading all the rest; my only disappointment is that he has not written books about every President and historical occurrence.

From the Book: "(p. 78) One had only to look at the map to see that Panama was the proper place for the canal. The route was already well established, there was a railroad, there were thriving cities at each end. Only at Panama could a sea-level canal be built. It was really no great issue at all. Naturally there were problems. There were always problems. There had been large, formidable problems at Suez, and to many respected authorities they too had seemed insurmountable. But as time passed, as the work moved ahead at Suez, indeed as difficulties increased, men of genius had come forth to meet and conquer those difficulties. The same would happen again. For every challenge there would be a man of genius capable of meeting and conquering it. One must trust to inspiration. As for the money, there was money aplenty in France just waiting for the opening of the subscription books."

"(p. 417) Seen under the microscope, Stegomyia is a creature of striking beauty. Its general color is dark gray, but the thorax is marked with a silvery-white lyre-shaped pattern; the abdomen is banded with silvery-white stripes and the six-jointed legs are striped alternately with black and pure white. Among mosquitoes Stegomyia is the height of elegance."

"(p. 499) To the majority of those on the job his presence had been magical. Years afterward, the wife of one of the steam-shovel engineers, Mrs. Rose van Hardevald, would recall, "We saw him...on the end of the train. Jan got small flags for the children, and told us about when the train would pass...Mr. Roosevelt flashed us one of his well-known toothy smiles and waved his hat at the children..." In an instant, she said, she understood her husband's faith in the man. "And I was more certain than ever that we ourselves would not leave until it [the canal] was finished." Two years before, they had been living in Wyoming on a lonely stop on the Union Pacific. When her husband heard of the work at Panama, he had immediately wanted to go, because, he told her, "With Teddy Roosevelt, anything is possible." At the time neither of them had known quite where Panama was located."